ZIM Day 41

Osiris looked frightened, “We have to get to the IDS tower now. We’re gonna get killed out here.”

Everybody agreed. The explosions were all around us. There was no hiding from them. We were only a few blocks from the tower. It was going to be hell getting there through the blasts, but I guess we didn’t have any other choice. We readied our weapons and took off down Hennepin Avenue.

I was at the front of the group. There weren’t many dead around and the few that were left weren’t in good enough shape to walk. The smoke from the bombs made it hard to see where we were going. Every few seconds another one would hit close by. We ran down the middle of the street to stay out of the way of any stray ghouls hiding among the buildings. The abandoned cars and debris made it a pain to run, but we kept going.Osiris ran up next to me and yelled something in my ear just as an explosion hit to my left. I didn’t hear a word of it, but he looked scared. I turned back to see the others following as fast as they could. Ben looked to be limping for a second, but then was blocked from my vision by another plume of smoke. He kept running past the blast and pushed someone else along.

We made a couple of blocks when Steffanie tripped over something. She fell face down onto the street. I turned back to help her, but was shocked to see BW pick her up and throw her over his shoulders. I think it was the first nice thing I’d seen him do. The group pushed on. The mortars seemed to be hitting closer. They were coming from the east and weren’t stopping. I couldn’t understand why they were shooting at us; there weren’t even any dead around.

After another block, I looked to the east to see that they weren’t just landing near us. There were plumes of smoke rising from the ground and buildings for blocks. The city was being destroyed. I didn’t know who was doing it, but I figured it must have been the same people from my dream. They were attacking downtown and we were caught in the middle of it.

“They’re bombing the city, why don’t we just run away. Let them deal with the dead.”

Osiris looked back at me and said, “We have to do this, it’s the only way to stop it. They can bomb the whole country and wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

We were only a block away from the IDS tower. The bombing was getting faster and louder. I kept running though. Some of the others were right next to me now. I knew we were close even though I could barely see through the smoke. I turned to make sure every one was keeping up. They were right behind me now. When I looked back ahead, a blast went off right in front of me.

I couldn’t see anything. Everything went white and I was deaf. It felt like I was spinning and falling and floating all at once. The world was just an empty white room. I couldn’t hear anything. I caught my foot on something and almost fell. I tried to balance myself, but could barely tell which way was up. Nothing made sense.

Then I felt something. Something ran into me, its hands grabbing at me in the blinding light. I tried to fight it off, but it wouldn’t let go. I knew that at any second I’d feel teeth tearing into me. The whole world was spinning and I knew I was about to die.